Planning Enhancements for the Texas A&M University Transit Service
Stephen P. Farnsworth, David Schrank and Patricia Bass-Ellis, Texas A&M University, August 1998, 69 pp. (472840-00019-1)
Over the last twenty years, the Texas A&M University campus in College Station, Texas has experienced substantial growth in both the number of students enrolled and the size of the campus. The University faces the challenge of ensuring the safe and efficient transportation of those that attend and work for the growing University. Students, faced with a limited amount of time and travel from one class location to another, have had an increasingly difficult time accessing the University’s transit system at a point that will allow them to arrive at their destination classroom before the class has begun. In response to this issue, the University sought to develop a transit planning and scheduling methodology that will allow them to analyze student class scheduling information on a semester basis in order to identify intracampus student movements, and subsequently, modify their service to meet those needs.
The University’s Student Information Management System, a comprehensive computer database containing student class scheduling information, was used to assess past and current student movements. Results of an analysis of student scheduling trends determined that the amount of service required to move students around campus has not changed significantly during the last ten years. The only significant changes in student movements occurred as a result of new classroom complexes opening on campus. The changes were reflected in different zonal origin-destination pairs and not in a significantly higher number of trips. It was determined that the University should move towards providing more direct routes or express service rather than continuing with the current multi-stop, circuitous routes. It was also determined that after an initial modification of the transit system only minor adjustments be made to the system in order to maximize the efficiency.
Keywords: Transit, Transit Scheduling, Transit Planning